


Hearts

by kitausuret



Series: Kinktober 2018 [19]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Venom (Comics)
Genre: ASM #800 fix-it, Canon is an Illusion, Closets, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Heart-to-Heart, Kinktober with no Kink, M/M, Making Out, Multi, Nobody is Dead, Other, Peter Has No Chill, Public Display of Affection, communicating like adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 07:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitausuret/pseuds/kitausuret
Summary: (a fix-it forThe Amazing Spider-Man#800)On a rainy, cursed night when the Red Goblin tore through New York City, he left carnage in his wake. In a moment of impulse, Eddie Brock allowed his symbiote to go with Spider-Man to try and defeat Osborn as one, teaming up with Agent Anti-Venom, Flash Thompson. And so he waited on the Stark Industries rooftop with Mary Jane Watson, but the one who returned with Venom... was not who he expected.Or: There's a lot of air to clear, but almost dying can certainly give a man some perspective.(Kinktober Day 19: Public)





	Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to my other ASM #800 Fix-It, [No Free Ride to Valhalla](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402480). Sort of. They both stand neatly on their own?
> 
> I followed the Kinktober prompt pretty loosely for this one, but it mainly just serves as a fix-it for everything between the end of _Venom: Space Knight_ and ASM #800. It doesn't fix everything, but all these characters are adults with more in common than they realize and that's important. 
> 
> I may one day expand this into a longer piece, but for now, here's what I've got!

“I think this was a bad idea. Like, a really _really_ bad idea.” She paused, and the rain continued to fall around them, and he knew she still had that repulsor on her hand. “No, no, you know what? I’m _absolutely certain_ it was a bad idea.” Her voice turned shrill. “How could you just let him go after that maniac with your… symbiote? If you were never able to defeat Carnage, do you really think that-”

“Miss Watson,” Eddie said through gritted teeth, “I _realize_ it was a mistake to send my other with Spider-Man, but it seemed like the wisest course of action _at the time_.”

“Well, I wish someone would’ve left you pants.”

After that, they lapsed into silence, Mary Jane seated on the Stark Industries rooftop and Eddie a few feet away, standing in the rain with only a scarf around his hips (at the woman’s insistence). She’d suggested waiting inside, but he’d refused to leave the last place he and his other had been joined. It had been some time since Spider-Man had taken his symbiote, off to take down both their most dangerous enemies, a horrible amalgam of both the infamous Green Goblin and the Carnage symbiote. The Red Goblin.

Flash Thompson had been among them. His other tried to hide it sometimes, but Eddie knew it still cared very deeply for its former host, with none of the resentment it held towards the others. It had been torn between the two of them not so long ago, ultimately heart-broken when Thompson had become the Anti-Venom.

 _Wanted you to know what he meant; wanted him to know what you meant to me,_ it had said a few days later. But the truth was, he was terrified of it leaving him. Who was he, without Venom? But what if it had desired to rebond permanently with the veteran? He knew from the memories it would let slip what they had done together; how they had grown and developed and--

A familiar sensation prickled the back of his mind just then and he stood up straighter. Swinging towards them was… Eddie’s stomach clenched. He recognized that armored look. All spikes and semblance of combat gear. Agent Venom gave a perfect flip in mid-air and landed right before Mary Jane, the symbiote dissolving from his face to reveal his wide grin. He scooped Mary Jane up in a hug, spinning her around as she laughed delightedly. Eddie almost moved to grab Thompson and shake him until he surrendered his other, but instead a profound loneliness gripped him in the midst of Flash and Mary Jane's happy reunion.

“Flash! You - and Venom-?”

“Got wrecked up pretty bad by Osborn, MJ. Pet- _Spider-Man_ let my buddy go at some point. The Anti-Venom was all gone, so Venom had to come keep me from bleeding out.”

She frowned. “And Spider-Man?”

“Osborn’s out of commission and getting taken in. Figured I ought to let you guys know though.” He turned then to Eddie. “And _you,_ Brock…”

Eddie stayed tight-lipped and swallowed his anxieties. He was going to say it. Thompson was going to say he was taking Venom back for good. He was walking over to at least give Eddie the courtesy of saying it to his face, and as the symbiote wrapped around Flash’s face again, he curled a hand around the back of Eddie’s neck and-

The mask peeled away just enough for Flash to press his lips to Eddie’s. After a moment, fighting the urge to push Thompson away because _what the fuck?_ he felt something cool and familiar. A tongue, too long to be human; teeth too large to not be his other’s. Tendrils wrapped around his waist and neck, one poking in just long enough for him to feel an intense surge of affection and relief, before the connection vanished as Flash pulled away.

He stared, shocked, and even in the dark he could see Flash blushing. “Sorry, I - er, Venom - no, you know what? Both of us. Been wanting to do that a while.” When Eddie didn’t respond, he went on. “I just, um, he wants to go back, and he’s going to, but if Venom leaves now I might bleed out, and I almost died and trust me, that _sucks_ , and- MJ? Are you okay?”

The redhead somehow looked even more baffled than Eddie, but it faded after a second. She crossed her arms and looked away. “No, yeah, I’m fine, I guess I just missed something, is all.”

“It’s-” Flash started.

Eddie continued, “-complicated.”

Mary Jane drummed her fingers on the repulsor still strapped to her hand. “Yeah, well…” She glanced between the two - three? - of them as if they were a puzzle to be solved. “I’m gonna wait for the webhead to get back and make sure he’s okay. Eugene, you have… a _lot_ of explaining to do.” She shook her head. “Clearly you’re not going to kill each other, so find Brock some pants. _Please_.”

Flash had been staring at him the whole time she’d been speaking, a small tendril wrapped around Eddie’s wrist. Flash had started to take his hand but instead took Eddie by the shoulder. “Um, yeah, great idea, let’s go do that.”

He waited until they were back inside the building to shove Flash up against the nearest wall. “What the _hell_ has gotten into you, Thompson? What the fuck happened out there? Why do you have my other? It doesn’t _belong_ to you, it chose me and-”

“Eddie, Eddie,” he said softly, putting his hands on Eddie’s forearms. Eddie shook as all the emotion he’d bottled up in front of Watson threatened to spill out. “I told you Venom would return to you, all right? Just please, please hear me out.” The symbiote sank mostly back inside him, patches of black underneath the shredded white t-shirt and stabilizing him from the waist down. “But I promised MJ I would find you pants, so…”

“...fine.” The symbiote still had a small bit of itself wrapped around his wrist and hand, but it hurt; it _hurt_ to be apart. He could probably find something in here to force them to separate, but then he’d be as bad as what Thompson had done as Anti-Venom.

Flash grabbed his hand and pulled him into a large utility closet, and he took a seat on a tub full of supplies. “Okay, um, I know it’s not like this is the first time I’ve seen you in your birthday suit, but I’m not actually all that keen on having this conversation with you while you’re naked because it’s pretty distracting and I’m still pretty high on adrenaline and almost dying.”

He quirked an eyebrow, but eventually fished around and found a pair of pants that fit. As soon as he sat down across from Flash, the veteran took his hand and bowed his head.

“I’m… sorry.”

Eddie frowned, half wanting to yank his hand away and half wanting to embrace Flash. Instead he sat ramrod-still, because he’d agreed to hear him out.

“That day in the lab at Alchemax… I was wrong, Eddie. I was really wrong. I was angry and upset and I didn’t understand, but that’s not an excuse for what I did to you and Venom. And then I took your old identity and I tried to do something good with it, but I hurt you and I hurt my partner and I - I fucked up, okay?”

He scooted closer, placing his hands on Eddie’s shoulders, and only now did Eddie see that Flash’s green eyes glistened with unshed tears. He didn’t know what to say, but Thompson had always tried to be honest with him. They were both fighters, and they both knew fights could get ugly, but in the end… They’d always tried to save each other.

Was it because of Venom? Or was it something else?

Flash went on, “And then everything happened with the Poisons, and things came crashing down, and I should’ve worked with you and I should have _trusted_ you, but I still didn’t get it.”

“For God’s sake, Thompson,” he finally said, “you keep saying ‘I didn’t get it’, ‘I didn’t understand’, but what, _what?_ ”

“I’m not great with words, Brock! Just… this!” Flash squeezed Eddie’s hand with both of his. “The bond. The connection. What it _means_ to the both of you. It’s different from what I have with him, but… Venom wanted so badly to be able to make things right with you. When we got separated, I almost fell off the wagon, and then shit went down with Price and Mania and…” He lifted their joined hands to his forehead. “All I had to do was talk to you. It wasn’t until I was dying and Venom came to save me that I understood. I missed him like I missed my own soul, but he needs this. He needs _you_.”

They sat like that a while, the symbiote twined around the both of them at their hands, just the barest of a surface-level connection so Eddie could tell Flash meant every damn word. Eventually, he rested his other hand on Flash’s and pulled him a little bit closer yet.

“No, Thompson; you don’t… you don’t know what I’ve seen. What I’ve felt. I get flashes, sometimes, of what you did together, and how you protected my… your partner. In ways I never could.” His eyes burned, but no, no way in hell was he going to lose control while someone else had his other. “I don’t know who I am without it.”

“But we do.”

Eddie snapped his head back up at the strange duality coloring Flash’s voice. The symbiote wrapped itself around its host, the usual white outlines giving way to the solid eyespots Eddie was most familiar with. Its deep voice was soft as they climbed into Eddie’s lap, holding his face gently.

“We know who you are, and we know you’re trying to be good. You want to be _better_ , the same as we do.” Flash’s voice faded almost completely then, and it felt like only the symbiote addressed him. “You are my heart, Eddie. You always will be.”

They leaned down and kissed him then, cradling his face, and Eddie wasn’t sure if it was more his symbiote or Flash who was kissing him. He wasn’t sure he particularly cared. His eyes flickered closed just as a light shone and he passed it off as a weird manifestation of Flash Thompson’s ridiculous charisma. Flash sucked in air straight from Eddie’s mouth as tendrils slid off, the connection to his other growing stronger every moment. His eyes watered, tears finally spilling out as the symbiote joined him once again.

 _“Eddie? Are you all right?”_ It sounded different, clearer, and Eddie wondered if Flash had something to do with that.

_Yes, love. I am, now._

Perhaps surprisingly, he found he didn’t want to stop kissing Flash, even as he felt all of Venom return. Maybe it was the symbiote who didn’t want to stop, but he swore he felt amusement sparkle in the back of his mind. It curled comfortably around him, and at last sank in fully, leaving Flash straddling Eddie’s lap in a Stark utility closet.

They only looked up when they heard a _click_ at the door.

Eddie stared at Flash, who looked red-faced but joyous. Eddie grimaced and put a finger to his lips, motioning with his head at the door. Flash, of course, immediately burst into giggles, and then full-on laughter, clinging to Eddie.

“Pete, if that’s you, don’t worry, we’re not naked.”

The door cracked open and Mary Jane poked her head in. Eddie buried his face in Flash’s chest, singularly mortified, and the stupid idiot just kept _laughing_ -

“ _Eugene!_ ” he snarled, but it was hard to really be mad.

“Oh my god, did you just full-name me?” Flash teased, and pressed a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head. “First date, or maybe like fourth date, and he’s calling me ‘Eugene’, MJ-”

He saw her roll her eyes and shake her head out of the corner of her eye. “Everyone’s safe, Peter. Eddie’s got pants and Flash looks to be okay, too.”

“Oh, thank God, I-” Peter Parker looked in through the doorway and immediately vanished around the corner. “ _MJ!_ You didn’t tell me they were-!”

“Peter, we’re all adults!”

“They’re making out like a couple of high schoolers!”

“Peter, calm down.”

“In a utility closet! It’s like seeing your little brother kissing someone in his date’s car…”

She turned back to them with a grimace. “Sorry about… him. I’m, uh, gonna find you a wheelchair, Flash.”

“We can take him home,” Eddie blurted. He turned back to Flash. “If you..?”

He grinned and kissed Eddie again, soft and sweet.

“Yeah. I think I’d like that.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hearts [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771552) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




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